diplomancy and levels

[jamminj]

hello.. firstly, i would like to say what an amazing looking mod this is.. having only played it for the 1st time at the weekend, i was truely blown away at the sheer beauty and the incrediable amount of work
put into it..
the detail is astounding, from the units, the buildings, the settlements, it really was an epic treat...
the problem iam having is with the diplomancy, maybe its because i was playing on hard campaign??
as macadonia, i am literly at war with everyone.. i have only expanded, and taken 3 rebel settlements north of capital..
the computer is allied with everyone, in this i mean my enemies, which are
rome,greeks states, pergommone, getia, scythia, sparta and egypt, basically everyone who i share a border with..
this has now turned the campaign into a slugfest.. every 2 turns iam fighting between 6 and 10 battles, which are relentless..
its seems the computer may aswell just be 1 large faction, even using the force diplomancy to ceasefire, has no lasting effect, as withing 2/3 turns they are all attacking again..

is there a way to nerf this single minded hatred from the computer??
the only up side to this is that after 10 hours straight play i have had no ctd at all..

[ferike_2007]

Hi and wellcome,

maybe a 'greek' player will help you.

I found just these, i think these will be a good start to study - i mean as tips and guides and tutorials for gameplay; RTW diplomacy is as it is...

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t-RS2-is-here&

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...sc-2-Hist-5%29

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-%28Chap-30%29

https://www.google.hu/?gws_rd=ssl#q=...rectum+macedon

[Risasi]

Yeah, diplo in the RTW engine is just a steaming pile. However it can be exploited once understood. This document was extremely helpful to me: http://cicero.modwest.com/writing/RTWDiplomacy.pdf

Nowadays when I am playing RSII my biggest rule is I don't make alliances. I will also tribute small amounts of cash to factions I don't want a war with, but with mixed results. I generally just focus on trade agreements and leave diplo at that. It's a mixed bag, if you still have someone bordering you they will likely eventually attack. Like the Seleucids, ALWAYS attack me if I'm Parthia. It's usually delayed though by small tribute and keeping a larger force on the border cities. I'm still experimenting though as I just discovered that document recently.

[ferike_2007]

I will also tribute small amounts of cash to factions I don't want a war with, but with mixed results.

I read somewhere (here on twcenter, but i don't remember on which thread) that giving any thing - cash, territory, etc - to AI in fact "encouraged" it to attack you.

Like the Seleucids, ALWAYS attack me if I'm Parthia.

Yes, they ALLWAYS will attack you because of the "factions relationship" and inter-factions "core-attitudes" setup from the descr_strat.text file.

[dvk901]

Diplomacy in RTW is admittedly flawed and sparse. However, there are 'diplomatic' measures that the AI will understand very well....strength, and very large 'black eye' or punch in the nose. I will explain...

The AI in RTW perceives you, the player, as a threat when and if it borders you. That can't be helped, obviously, but it can be 'adjusted', so to speak, by giving the AI something else to worry about. For example, I had a campaign long ago where, playing as Rome, the Gallacei just got a bug up their rears and continually sent army after army into my territory to attack me...even though I had abandoned all Spanish possessions and consolidated my holdings in Italy and Sicily. It upset my play-style, because I expand slow and deliberately...and I had no interest in Spain or the Gallacei at all. Diplomats failed. Forced diplomacy failed. And I was getting frustrated.

Finally, I assembled a full Legion at great cost (and risk, considering how they were pressing me), put it in a fleet, and sailed it around Gibraltar to the western side of Spain. There, I took this Legion and proceeded to slash and burn the enemy's largely unprotected towns and cities...burning, looting, and moving on to the next settlement to do the same. Since the AI had sent all it's armies to the east to attack me, it took it a long time to even respond to this back-door tactic, and by the time it did, I had seriously damaged their economy and ability to produce troops.

The net result of this was that they finally accepted peace, and kept it for a very long time. They kept their troops inside their own holdings, and even turned their focus to the Averni in the north. I even got a trade agreement with them eventually.

There is another benefit to this kind of tactic that is largely based on the AI's inability to 'see' any better than you can. When you border the AI, it can 'see' you, and therefore perceives the threat. When it is attacked from a direction 'other than' where it can see you, it will get wary. It knows YOU attacked, but from where? It can't see you in that direction. So I have seen that this will divert AI resources elsewhere to protect against attacks that it can't see or protect against. The result is that the pressure on you will at least diminish for a time, as the AI becomes more wary and confused.

[ferike_2007]

... and proceeded to slash and burn the enemy's largely unprotected towns and cities...burning, looting, and moving on to the next settlement to do the same. Since the AI had sent all it's armies to the east to attack me, it took it a long time to even respond to this back-door tactic, and by the time it did, I had seriously damaged their economy and ability to produce troops...

This tactics I used too in RS1.6 and was very effective, as you pointed, however I stop to doing it in RS2 because of roman rebels faction: I really don't like they got every abandoned/rebelled roman settlement. Is there any possibility to "kill" the rebels via background script after the player supress the (second)rebellion?

Thanks in advance.

[dvk901]

This tactics I used too in RS1.6 and was very effective, as you pointed, however I stop to doing it in RS2 because of roman rebels faction: I really don't like they got every abandoned/rebelled roman settlement. Is there any possibility to "kill" the rebels via background script after the player supress the (second)rebellion?

Thanks in advance.

I have an 'theory' about this problem that I've never been able to test. I don't 'think' it is necessary, the way RS2 is scripted, for the 'thrace' faction (the Roman-Rebels) to 'shadow' the Roman faction. It is this setting:

faction romans_brutii, shadowed_by thrace ;Romans

That causes every settlement that rebels to go to the Rebels. Removing it may stop that behavior. But I would need a save that's just beofre the second rebellion to test it.

Even so, it may not work at all. I have plans to totally rework loyalty traits and how it all works, and it may mean that RS2 has to be converted to BI.

[Alavaria]

I have an 'theory' about this problem that I've never been able to test. I don't 'think' it is necessary, the way RS2 is scripted, for the 'thrace' faction (the Roman-Rebels) to 'shadow' the Roman faction. It is this setting:

faction romans_brutii, shadowed_by thrace ;Romans

That causes every settlement that rebels to go to the Rebels. Removing it may stop that behavior. But I would need a save that's just beofre the second rebellion to test it.

Even so, it may not work at all. I have plans to totally rework loyalty traits and how it all works, and it may mean that RS2 has to be converted to BI.

It is necessary, because the script only directly transfers settlements without governors in it.

If a settlement has a governor, the script gives them a trait that reduces their loyalty to 0 or something, in order to make them rebel to the shadowing faction. So if you just remove the shadowing faction, this sort of thing will fail as they will not rebel (no where to rebel to).

The shadowing faction can also survive without a settlement, though this is less of an issue since I think they have at one divine settlement of terra incognita

To be honest I tried once to remove the shadowning part from this line: faction romans_brutii, shadowed_by thrace in descr_sm_factions text file in order to see "what if..." but wasn't too lucky: weird things started to happens at the beginnings, when I expected the Capuan rebellion. The rebel stacks which are intended to appear for Roman rebels(thrace) appeared in (my) Roman cities(romans_brutii), which doesn't rebels anymore, Roman generals wasn't expelled from cities and got full stack armies, and cities does not switched to automange mod. So I canceled my experimentations for this part of the game.

This is what I mean.


I remember reading the script sections on the rebellions, it was interesting..

[ur-Lord Tedric]

It is worth noting/re-emphasizing that the completely 'aggressive' stance of the other factions to 'you' is entirely deliberate, as designed and hard-coded into the game.

It's made to be 'Total War'. 'Realistic' that isn't really.

[ferike_2007]

Oh, great... thanks DVK!

Unfortunately I don't have adequate saved game at moment, recently started a new campaign and I'm quite far from the second rebellion... just get rid of Capuan rebellion and started to conquer North-Italian settlements. Old saves were deleted to make room for new ones

To be honest I tried once to remove the shadowning part from this line: faction romans_brutii, shadowed_by thrace in descr_sm_factions text file in order to see "what if..." but wasn't too lucky: weird things started to happens at the beginnings, when I expected the Capuan rebellion. The rebel stacks which are intended to appear for Roman rebels(thrace) appeared in (my) Roman cities(romans_brutii), which doesn't rebels anymore, Roman generals wasn't expelled from cities and got full stack armies, and cities does not switched to automange mod. So I canceled my experimentations for this part of the game.

[dvk901]

Ah...too bad.

[ferike_2007]

Ah...too bad.

Maybe not all is lost.

This issue particulary intrigues me because in my oppinion the Roman rebels' faction has two main reason in the game: the Capuan Rebellion and the Roman Civil War; their role is absolutely important for the gameplay and I love these challenges, but on the other hand except this two main events there is no room for these guys. Ok, they are involved in some scripted events too, but for this is enough to have their tiny island, I don't want to see them more than is strictly necessary.

In last few days I tried to recall what I really did a while ago in order to avoid the rebelling cities became Roman Rebels and suddenly realized I made some unnecessary changes too beside the removing the "shadowing faction" entry in descr_sm_factions.txt file.

So, removed JUST the "shadowing faction" entry and run some tests, and all seems to work for now. I played 5 times between 45-55 turns - mostly with autoresolve battles, to speed up things - and at every time the Capuan Rebellion occurs as it is intended, before the 10'th turn, in the proper cities, proper troops and named characters appears every time, Roman family members were expelled from the cities and cities became owned by Roman Rebels, AND... all my cities switched to automanage.

I let many time the occupied settlements to rebel an ALL of them became "slave" cities.

Unfortunatelly haven't had too much time to continue the tests but I think this give us the hope game will run without problems. Further tests should be running untill the Civil War and beyond but I'm not in the (real life) situation to assume it on myself.

[dvk901]

Maybe not all is lost.

This issue particulary intrigues me because in my oppinion the Roman rebels' faction has two main reason in the game: the Capuan Rebellion and the Roman Civil War; their role is absolutely important for the gameplay and I love these challenges, but on the other hand except this two main events there is no room for these guys. Ok, they are involved in some scripted events too, but for this is enough to have their tiny island, I don't want to see them more than is strictly necessary.

In last few days I tried to recall what I really did a while ago in order to avoid the rebelling cities became Roman Rebels and suddenly realized I made some unnecessary changes too beside the removing the "shadowing faction" entry in descr_sm_factions.txt file.

So, removed JUST the "shadowing faction" entry and run some tests, and all seems to work for now. I played 5 times between 45-55 turns - mostly with autoresolve battles, to speed up things - and at every time the Capuan Rebellion occurs as it is intended, before the 10'th turn, in the proper cities, proper troops and named characters appears every time, Roman family members were expelled from the cities and cities became owned by Roman Rebels, AND... all my cities switched to automanage.

I let many time the occupied settlements to rebel an ALL of them became "slave" cities.

Unfortunatelly haven't had too much time to continue the tests but I think this give us the hope game will run without problems. Further tests should be running untill the Civil War and beyond but I'm not in the (real life) situation to assume it on myself.

The way I read the rebellion script, a chain of events are set off that 'seem' to have little to do with the 'shadowing' issue. A lot of traits and ancillaries are involved when the Roman FL gets the trait 'Dictator for Life', which is essentially what happened with Julius Caesar.....and this sets in motion a chain of events where characters randomly approve this (stay loyal), or disapprove, and get huge loyalty penalties. These characters then rebel in a turn of two and are expelled from the settlement they were in. Then, the script checks these settlements, find those that are randomly chosen first, then those whose Governors got the boot, and then a console_command gives 'thrace, (Roman rebels)' control of the game, the script allows Thrace to take the city, and a few units are created there. Then a console command is used to give control of the game back to the player. (This is why all settlements end up in auto-manage.)

I don't really see where 'shadowing' plays any part in this. The Capuan rebellion works in almost the same manner...so if THAT works, there's no reason I can see that the large rebellion wouldn't work as well.

Now, it is true that Rome's rebelling characters wouldn't rebel to the Roman Rebels, but wouldn't they rebel to the 'slave' faction as they would by default?

[MacBlain]

I have studied the pdf mentioned by Risasi very closely. As a result, I find diplomacy completely comprehensible and hugely fun and rewarding. Power blocs form meaningfully, I find myself getting courted by weak factions who have common diplomatic interests. I break off trade relations with factions I want to hurt but need to remain neutral toward. Securing an alliance with a particular faction sometimes causes an enemy to sue for peace. It's great.

Get a sense of how the AI actually works, and forget about what you think would be "realistic" or what a player would do.

And, perhaps most importantly, I always play on Medium campaign difficulty. Anything else creates a baseline of anti-player aggression that completely ruins the diplomatic ecosystem.

I think it would be much, much better to have launcher options that activated scripts that would stack things against the player to a greater or lesser degree.

[Agrippa19]

@Ferike... That's awesome,rebel roman settlements other than the scripted rebellions are a real pain to have to constantly deal with

[ferike_2007]

@Ferike... That's awesome,rebel roman settlements other than the scripted rebellions are a real pain to have to constantly deal with

Unfortunately I did not notice that remowing the 'shadowing' line seems to deactivate the 'loyalty' function: the little ring-line which shows characters loyalty does not appears in the character's window... however I suppose it works in background. Readded the 'shadowing' line in descr_sm_factions and continued a saved game and 'loyalty' re-appears and game did not crashed but I don't know if weird thing will not start few turns later...

I'm so sorry that I gave false hope.

[Lord Dakier]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...iplomacy-Guide

This thread is for M2TW, but if you follow it then you'll never really have issues with diplomacy. There is no auto-attack. The AI always has reasons. The reason why I prefer M2TW over Rome these days is due to being able to see what factions think of the deals I'm making with them.

[MacBlain]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...iplomacy-Guide

This thread is for M2TW, but if you follow it then you'll never really have issues with diplomacy. There is no auto-attack. The AI always has reasons. The reason why I prefer M2TW over Rome these days is due to being able to see what factions think of the deals I'm making with them.

Wow, this is great! I'm guessing a lot of this applies to RTW.

RTW doesn't give as many cues, but by looking at things from the AI's point of view, it's possible to guess what they think to a useful degree.

Diplomacy is mysterious, but it isn't arbitrary. If you pay attention you can interact with it in a meaningful way.